Gennari Rinaldo

Performing, recording and commissioning music by the legendary conductor and composer José Serebrier, throughout my almost 15-years long friendship and collaboration with him, has never been, for me, less than utterly fascinating and inspiring. José Serebrier (born in 1938) is today’s most frequently-recorded conductor, has collaborated with some of the world’s greatest soloists and orchestras, and is among the most sought-after guest conductors, constantly touring with major orchestras around the world. Serebrier established himself as a significant composer as far back as the 1950s, with over 100 published works. Born in Uruguay, of Russian and Polish parents, Serebrier composed music and conducted orchestras since early childhood, conceiving his Opus 1 – Sonata for solo violin at the age of 9, and making his conducting debut at age 11.

Monteverdi was only 23 when he published his Second Book of Madrigals in 1590, but he was already a master of the form, and these contrapuntally lively pieces, with their supple and astute text setting, are crowning works of late Renaissance secular polyphony. With this release of the Second Book, Rinaldo Alessandrini moves closer to his goal of recording all of Monteverdi's eight Books of Madrigals, performed by Concerto Italiano, the ensemble he founded in 1984. The series has received much-deserved critical acclaim; three of the releases won Gramophone Awards, and this 1994 recording won a Diapason d'Or. Concerto Italiano is a group whose roster is flexible, based on the requirements of the music performed, and here seven unaccompanied singers configure themselves in a variety of combinations in the five-part madrigals.

The arias, duets, recitatives and overtures in this recording are not grouped according to a set theme or singing style: heroic tenors, rival queens or famous castrati. Instead, if the sleeve-notes are to be believed, soprano Sandrine Piau, contralto Sara Mingardo and conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini set out simply to enjoy themselves by performing favourite works from across Handel’s operatic output. Their only rules were to omit the very famous numbers - ‘Cara sposa’ from Rinaldo, for example, is not included - maintain a sense of mood contrast, and to include opening recitatives as a means of placing the characters within the dramatic context of each opera.

Even in a field overcrowded with noteworthy editions of the Bach Sonatas for violin and harpsichord, these 1995 recordings maintain permanent status on my shelves. Fabio Biondi's fiddling is thoroughly steeped in the grammar of period performance yet avoids the exaggerated agogics, metronomic facelessness, and wimpy tonal qualities we often put up with in the name of authenticity. Abetted by Rinaldo Alessandrini's imaginative partnering, Biondi's characterful, singing sonority puts a fresh spin on every phrase. His improvised embellishments, no matter how audacious they sound at first, always arise out of an organic response to the music's spirit.

This disc is a tour de force, a world premiere recording of stunning music splendidly performed. The unjustly obscure Antonio Maria Bononcini was appointed late in life to be maestro di cappella in Modena, a post which allowed him to pour his store of invention into two grand sacred works, a Mass and a Stabat Mater. Conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini engages deeply with the composer’s imagination, opening up his dense counterpoint and delicately binding together his vocal and obbligato lines. The musical rhetoric of the Concerto Italiano is spellbinding, particularly when band and singers heighten gestures to surge powerfully towards a passage’s final cadence. However heated their delivery becomes – and the Stabat Mater does sizzle – the artists never rush. This is particularly crucial for bringing out Bononcini’s modulations and textures, which, because they shift rapidly, need space to breathe.

Armida is the tenth opera in the Vivaldi Edition; it's the second one to be recorded by Rinaldo Alessandrini (their first was L’Olimpiade). It's a great success. Marking the end of Vivaldi's first period in Venice, it lacks music for Act II. Alessandrini has reconstructed it here using carefully chosen existing music of the composer with the assistance of the musicologist Frédéric Delaméa.

Despite the public context – the story is played out against the backdrop of the Olympic Games – this is a drama which focuses on the personal predicaments of the principal characters, each of whom faces an interesting conflict between head and heart somewhere along the line. This is more apparent from Metastasio's words than from Vivaldi's music, to be honest, but that isn't to say that the composer has been unresponsive. The most effective and intimate moments occur in the recitatives, which are fluidly conversational and full of realistic interruptions, questions and exclamations, all of which Vivaldi handles with considerable dramatic skill.

The most beautiful arias from the Vivaldi Edition: La verità in cimento, Juditha Triumphans, L'Olimpiade, Orlando finto pazzo. The album includes outstanding singers and arias that were sensational discoveries when first introduced in this series.

In this programme entitled Variations on Variations, Rinaldo Alessandrini, one of the today’s references on Baroque music, has chosen to adapt the Goldberg Variations and the Aria variata alla maniera italiana - initially composed for the keyboard - for small string ensemble, from duo to quartet.